Have a look at the the current Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles, captured here in a series of photographs by Joan Marcus.
Kelsey Grammer and Douglas Hodge lead the cast of this revival as as Georges and Albin respectively, with Fred Applegate as Edouard Dindon/M. Renaud, Veanne Cox as Mme. Dindon/Mme. Renaud, Chris Hoch as Francis, Elena Shaddow as Anne, A.J. Shively as Jean-Michel, Christine Andreas as Jacqueline, Robin de Jesús as Jacob, Heather Lindell as Colette, Cheryl Stern as Babette, Bill Nolte as Tabarro and David Nathan Perlow as Etienne. The Cagelles include Nick Adams as Angelique, Sean A. Carmon as Phaedra, Nicholas Cunningham as Hanna, Sean Patrick Doyle as Chantal, Logan Keslar as Bitelle and Terry Lavell as Mercedes. Also in the cast is Dale Hensley as a waiter, while Christophe Caballero, Todd Lattimore and Caitlin Mundth are the swings.
La Cage aux Folles, which features a book by Harvey Fierstein – based on the play by Jean Poiret – and a score by Jerry Herman, is directed by Terry Johnson with choreography by Lynne Page. The second revival of the show in the past decade, the previous incarnation having won the 2005 Tony award for Best Revival of a Musical despite a decidedly mixed reception, this production looks like a hot contender for that same award in 2010.
While the 2004-2005 season was a poor one for revivals, this past season has offered some strong competition, but this reconceptualization of the material in this case seems to be the factor that might sway the voters’ hands. This was certainly what propelled the production to Olivier Award-winning status, despite the reservations of Arthur Laurents, who said in a recent interview with OUT magazine that this production was cheap and homophobic in comparison with his Tony-award winning direction of the original production, which infamously beat out the far superior Sunday in the Park with George for the Best Musical prize of the 1983/1984 season. Laurents, of course, knows how homophobia materializes in the arts: one only needs to look to his screenplay for The Turning Point to see that. But I digress. We’ll have to wait for the Tony Awards later this year to see what happens there.
Musical Cyberspace 
Rosie O’Donnell and THE KID: a Dark Nights Discussion
The Kid is a new musical based on based on Dan Savage’s The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Get Pregnant being presented by The New Group for a world premiere run later this month. With previews for the show (which features a book by Michael Zam, music by Andy Monroe and lyrics by Jack Lechner) starting on 16 April in a production directed by Scott Elliott, with musical staging by Josh Prince, The New Group will host a discussion dealing with the major theme of the show: “The Modern Family: A Discussion of Gay Adoption” on the following Sunday. The evening will be hosted by Rosie O’ Donnell, who had the following to say about the show in a statement about the event on Playbill yesterday:
The panel will also include Terry Boggis, Jack Lechner and Josh Lehrer. More information about the event can be found at The New Group’s website.